Lake District as a Romantic Subject in the Work of Wordsworth and Turner

Compare and contrast the treatment of the Lake District as a Romantic subject in the work of Wordsworth and Turner.  

The late 18th century saw major changes in the countryside due to the rise in industrialisation and tourism.  The poorer class were forced to move in search of work, many into cramped factories, and simultaneously the richer classes became nostalgic for a simpler, idyllic pastoral life and the countryside, which led to a growth in tourism.  The focus on the countryside was reflected in art and poetry, in particular in the work of Wordsworth and Turner who were inspired by the Lake District.  

Wordsworth had a deep connection with the Lake District from childhood and his early poems were written in ‘stock idyllic imagery, from the pastoral tradition employed by poets from classical antiquity onwards.’ (Block 4, p.6).  His early poetry of the Lake District would have been known as topographical or peripatetic poetry written in elegiac phrases and imagery that would have been easily understood and recognisable to the educated, as well as being symbolic of Wordsworth’s learnedness.  His early poetry was closely connected to the picturesque imagery related to the Lakes guidebooks produced for the newest influx of tourists.  However his later poetry evolved into the product of something deeply personal and his Guide Through the District of the Lakes in the North of England, with a Description of the Scenery, etc. for the use of Tourists and Residents is an incredible reflection of his familiarity and intimacy with the landscape of the Lake District.  It also shows an Enlightenment interest in scientific knowledge, and is much more detailed than previous picturesque guides.  

In The ‘visual interest’ of mountains he writes plainly but descriptively and with conviction.  It is written in simple prose, void of elegiac imagery but it is still poetic.  Instead the passage is full of geological descriptions of what the rocks are made from, what gives the landscape its colours, and beautiful images of how their colours change through the seasons. He writes about the landscape from differing viewpoints where he can encompass details from high and low.

He writes as though he is a painter mixing paints on a palette, ‘the predominant colour of their rocky parts is bluish, or hoary grey – the general tint of the lichens with which the bare stone is encrusted’, ‘bright yellow or lemon colour, at the base of the mountains, melting gradually, through orange, to a dark russet brown towards the summits.’ (Anthology II, p91)

He sets the Lake District aflame with his language, his imagery is sublime but more than this Wordsworth also situates himself in the script, ‘I will content myself with one instance of the colouring produced by snow, which may not be uninteresting to painters.’ (Anthology II, p92)

Similar to Wordsworth’s later Lake District poetry and prose, Turner’s Lake District paintings and drawings transition away from lowly picturesque drawings by the likes of Gilpin who sought to capture the good and bad aspects of a landscape. Turner also sought to move away from a taught Academic style to something more personal and individual and what he produced were sublime paintings which evoked feelings of awe at the grandeur of nature both in himself and in the viewer.  He was a pioneer in that he finished most of his paintings outside and experienced some of the harshest of elements to do so.  

His painting Buttermere Lake, with part of Cromackwater, Cumberland, a Shower (Illustrations Book, Plate 17.9, p73) depicts a night scene of mountains with a lake in the foreground, and another in the far ground. The scene is populated by a lonely boatman in the central foreground, and although the scene is dark and deliberately dramatic, it is enlivened with a rainbow that effervesces from the centre of the painting with a broad sweeping motion over the boatman, which is also reflected in the water and with an opening of blue sky during a shower. The boatman looks very small in the darkness, and in the shadow of the mountains, and acts as a Romantic tool to illustrate the vastness of the landscape.  Incredibly the painting is oil on canvas and although heavier than his watercolours, Turner still manages to capture the lightness of the rain, and the streams of light.  He paints the Lake District just as poetically as Wordsworth describes it in his Lakes guides with yellow toned lichens in the valley gradually darkening further up the mountains.

This illustrates Turner’s signature Romanticism because it shows how he wanted to paint awe and feeling rather than just an Academic, anatomical copy of what he saw.  As a result, his paintings became more abstract as detail became softened, and mood, light and colour became more prominent.

Unlike Wordsworth who had studied and walked the Lake District since childhood, he was seeing and expressing the grandeur of the Lake District as a visitor with fresh eyes.  In Buttermere Lake we can see some influences in the size and structure from Rembrandt’s The Stone Bridge (Illustration Book, Plate 17.10, p74) and Rubens’ The Rainbow Landscape (Illustration Book, Plate 17.11, p75), and he captures the warm radiance of the paintings of Claude Lorrain.

Wordsworth and Turner connected with nature directly rather than just convey it.  They both came from Academic backgrounds where certain methods and predetermined allusions were expected to be used but gradually they developed their own styles of expression.  They were both interested in science but in different ways.  Wordsworth was interested in the geology of the Lake District but wished to preserve it just as it was without new buildings or planned, ornamental gardens whereas Turner believed that a landscape could be enhanced by a manmade construction like railways, and boats.  They were both interested in capturing single, fleeting moments in their work but in particular Turner who could capture flickering light, the opening of a cloud or the speed of a train.  Paradoxically they also clearly embraced the Romantic ideas of Rousseau who believed in the importance of a closeness to nature, and a sincerity in their work.   However, one major difference between them is that Wordsworth sought out minute detail in the landscape whereas Turner washed over detail to create mood, drama and effect.